One big experiment
Jos and Wieteke, 16–08–15, teamblog
Today is a Sunday, but some team members were already waiting outside before 10 AM for the doors of the GoodLab to open! It is nice to know that everybody is still excited for the rest of the week after the first Open Class we had yesterday. We even have a new team member who just flew in all the way from Taiwan.
Yesterday, we formed two teams — in total we have 22 people participating in the core group and 18 people participating part-time in the experience group. Both teams will be working on different cases:
- Team ‘Smarties’ will work on the topic of lonely elderly in Sham Shui Po
- Team ‘Urban Nomads’ will work on the topic of homelessness in Sham Shui Po
Everything is in… orange!
From now on, we will start with a check-in at 10 AM every morning — today was the first one. During the check-in, we talk about our experiences of the past day and we look forward to the activities that are scheduled for the afternoon. There’s also room for team members to propose questions they still have and share their thoughts on the their experiences and the ethical dilemmas they may encounter.
Last night, we as a lab team took over the mini theatre of the GoodLab, which will be our headquarters for the upcoming week. Every wall is now covered with posters (about our assumptions, the people we’ve met, the ideas that are generated, etc.) that are waiting to be filled in during the next Feed Forward steps. These posters will help us to evaluate the whole lab process and it will also provide the framework for the second Open Class next Saturday. Besides, we really feel at home now because literally everything at the GoodLab is in orange.
To blog or not to blog
After the check-in it was time for the first workshop on collecting stories (Feed Forward step 1). A few participants have already participated in other research project where they collected stories, and they shared some useful insights with the rest of the team. Collecting stories for the first time might be a bit scary, but luckily Ada soothed the participants by telling them that the whole week will be one big experiment and is all about learning: “As long as you’re being empathetic, there is no wrong approach.” With this in mind, participants will work according to our ‘do not harm’-principles: every decision you make during the project is based on good intentions and will not harm storytellers in any way.
After a well deserved lunch it stopped raining and we could finally go out to Sham Shui Po to do some ethnographic research. Because we have two big lab teams, the teams will be divided in groups of 2–3 people that will visit different parts of the neighbourhood. Together, they will write different blogs about the storytellers they meet, their reflection on the interview and a summary of the day. We are as curious as the participants as to what the day will bring the lab teams! One thing we know for sure is that everybody is very excited and in a good spirit to go out. Hopefully you’ll see the first results of the fieldwork on the blog tonight, we’ll meet everyone tomorrow at 10 AM for the next check-in.
Schedule
For everyone who’s not in Hong Kong right now, our schedule for the following days looks like this:
